Change ESF missiles vs. liberators

ESF pilots constantly complain about how hard it is to kill liberators. On one hand, much of the time this is a l2p issue, but on the other hand, Liberators are getting a straight buff against ESF's with improved tailguns and a coyote style tailgun, as well as a faster racer frame.. To balance that, I propose that Liberators get lowered resistence against ESF missiles, namely the coyotes, A2AM, and lolpods. I won't propose specific resistance changes as I don't know what they're at now, but ESFs should stay at least where they are at now in regards to killing liberators.

lolpods are the A2G missile

A2Am's are already pretty good against Libs

Coyotes are the dogfighting missile

HORNETS need a small buff. Free look being returned or velocity increase would make them a good anti-lib option.

How many shots does a Dalton need to kill an ESF?

How many A2AM's are needed against a Lib?

Yeah, straight up, these need a huge buff vs. Libs. They should be more like 3 A2AM's to set a Lib on fire at most!

Isnt the complaints usually from pilots who try to solo Libs? Since when is teamwork such a bad thing?

there's something called aiming and another thing called a default nosegun, when using this at 1k meters away from the lib, and running when the lib tries to chase you, it is extremely effective albeit boring way to kill a lib. 99 times out of 100, it will work.

just read your last sentence, you're joking right?

Not at all - the TTK to kill an ESF with the Dalton is 0, its a OHK. The Zephyr and Shredder are not far behind that.

You can build a bunch of excuses but simply put, the ESF has nearly nowhere near the DPS it needs to effectively combat Libs today. Libs are the only counter to Libs really.

If you engage at the range A2Am's should be used at vs a Lib then they shouldn't hit you unless you sit and watch the round hit you in the face.

I've fought good dalton crews with A2Am, and I had to dodge some shots... but I had TIME to do that. Meanwhile they can't dodge a lock-on.... though the better crews recognized what I was doing and fell back to AA where I had to break off, but still.

A2Am is easily the best tool for killing Libs. Hands down.

get 2 ESF with them and a Lib is TOAST

DON'T GET IN RANGE OF DALTON.

Seriously. If you keep at 300m away from a Dalton Lib their TTK on you is infinity.

Easier said than done, a Lib that keeps charging at you will keep closing the range, and now they even get a new free look gun to shoot at you while they're closing the distance too.

The Dalton shouldn't be an A2A weapon at all. Its just ridiculous and stupid how versatile it is... like I said, the Lib is your anti everything OP platform even today. They're about to get crazy OP soon.

I have a lot more speed and AB fuel than they do.

Chase me? Fine, I'll lead you towards friends and AA and leave you with farther to run when you finally realize I'm not going to give you a good shot.

I've never died to a lib in my A2Am build (which I haven't played much lately since I only have A2Am on my Mossie... kinda waiting to see if another secondary weapon for ESF *cough*Hornets*cough* ends up getting a buff to help it out *freelook/velocity*)

If you don't have any friends and AA to lead them towards, I've seen Libs chase people all the way back to the WGs even.

One can hope. I don't see Hornets as anything more than a hobby item even with a freelook/velocity buff. Rocket pods are just the better option, until Hornets can pack more punch in a volley vs. vehicles than rocket pods do, they will always be a niche item to play with, but not used seriously.

If you really, genuinely think that the Zephyr is good AA, then you should uninstall PS2 out of shame.

But, in saying that Libs are good anti-lib is correct, actually. The High damage style anti tank weapons of the Liberator are quite effective against it's fellow slow moving, heavily armored aircraft...

Ya know, it's almost as if the Liberator is the MBT of the sky...

Yea...

*cough*

The thing most people seem to ignore is that ESFs are supposed to be the Hard Counter to Liberators. Maybe dropping my suggestion to improve lolpods against libs is unecessary, but if a fighter plane sacrafices its ground attack capability to equip dedicated anti air weaponry, then a liberator's thought shouldn't be "with some skill and luck, I might be able to kill this ESF" it should be "Crap! I better turn tail and run, and hope that my tailgunner can deal enough damage to the ESF to ward it off." Teamwork in a liberator should make it more effective against ground targets, but even a 3/3 liberator should be scared of an air superiority fighter.

Notice how I'm not crying about the dalton as it is now: with even some skill, an ESF pilot can evade those shots. My issue is with the changes to liberator on test server: it's a straight buff to liberators'* defensive capabilities even though I'd wager very, very few liberator pilots/gunners complain about ESFs being overpowered against them.

When tankers complain about C4 faries, a common rebuttle is that they should get some infantry to defend them. For the same reason, Liberators should be made to fly with an escort if they want to survive their direct counter.

Never said that - but its true enough that a good gunner can still use a Zephyr even in a pinch for AA.

But MBT's don't OHK Lightnings, which makes ESFs, what, Flashes of the sky?

See the big problem here? No MBT has that kind of TTK vs Lightnings.

The Lib is just INSANELY OP and unbalanced vs. ESFs.

IMO, libs are fairly balanced, maybe slightly OP right now, but the problem is that the new update just buffs nearly everything on the liberator except a slight nerf against ground for dalton. My suggestion is for something I want happening if the update goes as it is.

They're too versatile even today, not crazy OP, but a Dalton Lib doesn't have many cons to it, its a win to pack a Dalton in most situations. Its a weapon that simply put is performing too well in all areas and has no real drawbacks to it other than having a skilled enough gunner in the seat. If the Dalton performs so well A2A, why shouldn't ESF rocket pods do the same too? Why shouldn't tank MBTs do the same (they're getting nerfed vs. Libs)? And so on and so forth.

But that said, yeah, they aren't too terribly OP today, but these changes are going to put the Lib into the top of the food chain by far.

Dalton is the A2G bellygun. If a skilled liberator should be able to oneshot an ESF in close range, a skilled ESF should be able to oneclip a liberator with A2G missiles at close range. This doesn't neccesarily mean oneclipping with lolpods, but if a liberator stays still enough (relative to the ESF) that the ESF can hit it with two hornets, it should be oneclipped. It would give the weapon an interesting niche, anyways.

but it takes time for that high dps to be effective. It also requires more leading and essentially luck. An ESF can damage a lib the second the ESF sees the lib. a lib can rarely do the same unless they are running a vektor which I have been doing recently for AA purposes as well as for funnsies purposes.

sure, the ESF can damage the lib, but then it immediately needs to switch to evasive maneuvers to avoid getting hit by dalton. In the mean time, auto-repair brings up the liberator's health while the ESF needs to get back in position to hit the lib. multiple ESFs avoid this problem, but you shouldn't ever need multiple ESFs to take down a single lib, and with improved tailgun, the Liberator can buy even more time against the ESF's strafing runs.

A2A missiles ARE getting buffed (along with the striker) in the current PTS build--you can maintain lock out to 700 meters now.

(Which is silly, because it's an annoying game mechanic made even more annoying)